IBM Testing Lygon Blockchain Platform To Streamline Property Leasing

ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, IBM, Scentre Group and Westpac have announced they are partnering to launch a live pilot for Lygon, a new digital platform using blockchain technology to digitize the bank guarantee process needed for retail property leases.

While bank guarantees have primarily been issued manually and on paper, digitizing the process reduces the risk of fraud, decreases the chance for errors and significantly speeds up the entire process. In fact, initial findings show that the Lygon platform could reduce the time it takes to issue a bank guarantee from up to a month to on or around the same day.

In addition, the process will boost transparency and security through the use of blockchain technology.

The pilot is set to run for eight weeks with live data and transactions for a test group of retail property leasing customers. Lygon plans to expand the digitized bank guarantees across other industries, as well as offer its services to other customers in the retail property sector.

“We have created a blockchain-based platform to digitize the bank guarantee ecosystem. The pilot will test live transactions using distributed ledger to prove the technology is commercially viable. It is a great example of digital transformation that refines the customer experience,” Didier Van Not, general manager of Corporate and Institutional Banking at Westpac, said, according to Cointelegraph.

This is IBM’s latest foray into blockchain. Last year it launched IBM Blockchain World Wire, the technology conglomerate’s new financial rail via a partnership with blockchain company Stellar.

“Sending money across borders today requires a series of intermediaries for both clearing and settlement, each adding time and cost to the process,” IBM explained at the time. “With IBM Blockchain World Wire, clearing and settlement with finality happens in near real time.”

And just last month, CIP, a facilitator of Brazilian banking and financial infrastructure, rolled out its blockchain ID platform through a partnership with IBM using Hyperledger Fabric, while in March, five Japanese banks partnered to launch a financial services infrastructure based on IBM’s distributed ledger technology.